The new author runs a transcoding tool once you open any publication, containing media. Before it will allow you to publish or export an "IBA" for publication, it recompresses your media, even if it does not need it. There doesn't appear to be any real size checking or file typing happening. Even if your publication far above or below the publication limit, your media is transcoded. In most cases, the resultant optimization increases your IBA by 10 to 20% in size.

It is possible to disable the Transcoding by renaming the script that launches it, which is hidden amongst iBookaurthor's resource files, but it apparently needs to run before publishing...

The optimization routine in iBooks Author 2.0 is well intendtioned but the execution of those intentions is quite poor. In addition to bloating the size of your videos and, hence, your iBook, it can also degrade visual quality in dramatic fashion. For example, I created a screencast in ScreenFlow 4.0 (just released) that looked great in QuickTime X Player (sharp, highly readable text, etc.) but in iBooks I could hardly recognize these details at full screen. Now, ScreenFlow (by Telestream) uses the X.264 CODEC which is at least as good as the H.264 CODEC that Apple uses (many video pros argue that X.264 is better). That may be a part of the problem I saw. The other factor may be that this .m4a video file was 1280x800, not the 1280x720 maximum for iPad. The IBA optimizer dutifully attempted to make it "right" but, instead made it unusable for my iBook. To be fair, tossing it a soft ball (video that already meets iPad specs in every way) produces decent looking, albeit heftier, results.

BTW, you can see the optimizer in action and thereby get a sense of the time it takes by replacing a video in an IBA project. You do that by clicking on the media to invoke the "Edit Media" button, clicking that and drag/dropping a new video in its place. You'll get a progress bar and a "time remaining" estimate. You will notice that the longer it takes, the worse the outcome in terms of file size and visual quality. My 1280x800 file took a long time. A 1280x720 .m4a file takes much less time.

It gets worse. The optimizer apparently uses the QuickTime engine which means that any tracks beyond one video track and one audio track will be trashed. Thus, if you have any soft subtitle or alternate audio tracks, they will be deleted without notice. I used a test file with three audio tracks (English, Spanish and French) and four soft subtitle tracks (English, Spanish, French and Hungarian). These extra tracks were perfectly accessible in *.ibooks files produced by iBooks Author 1.x in the iBooks.app as well as the Videos.app and elsewhere. The optimizer (ne terminator) in iBooks Author deletes all soft subtitle tracks and all but the English audio track.

Let's not forget that iBooks Author is ostensibly used by commercial textbook publishers (McGraw-Hill, Pearson et. al.) and, furthermore, that media accessibility by all students is mandated by federal law. I cannot imagine that anyone is not going to want to turn this feature off, at least until it becomes mature.

With iBooks Author 1.x, I had figured out how to create very efficient and highly capable video that IBA will accept. This "feature" throws me and a lot of other capable people into a ditch.

Apple may not care to listen to you and I but surely they will pay attention when the folks at Pearson, McGraw-Hill and other commercial entities try to work with this new version and begin to feel our pain. Let's hope that TimeMachine works as advertised.

I don't mind the media optimization I would just like to know the Progress of how long I have to wait, is there a way to look and see how far it has done or has left without trying to export it then they tell you it is Optimizing media but no details as to how long. Help Please. Thanks

I'm having some nasty, post optimization issue's. I've been building interactive childrens books and a lot of the interactive files are built in Keynote. I add a sound file to just about ever slide in the file. Worked great in IBA 1.1. After optimizing the file in 2.0, just about every sound file (.m4a) is gone.

More Like This

Retrieving data ...

This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only.
Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided; every potential issue may involve several factors not detailed in the conversations captured in an electronic forum and Apple can therefore provide no guarantee as to the efficacy of any proposed solutions on the community forums.
Apple disclaims any and all liability for the acts, omissions and conduct of any third parties in connection with or related to your use of the site. All postings and use of the content on this site are subject to the Apple Support Communities Terms of Use.